Do supervised consumption sites increase crime? 'The answer to that is a flat no'

The woman who pioneered Canada's first-ever supervised consumption site inside a residential building says over the last two years, they have reduced crime, prevented overdose deaths and drastically reduced the number of dirty needles discarded in common areas. 

They're using in a way that I think is not only safe for them, but safe for their community.- Janice Abbott

It comes amid a growing public debate over whether London should open the city's first supervised consumption site inside 241 Simcoe St., 12-storey public housing highrise where tenants say drug abuse is so rampant the building has earned the nickname 'the crystal palace.' 

• Inside London's 'crystal palace:' where strung out drug addicts lie sprawled in the stairwells

• These are the 2 locations London's health unit wants for drug consumption sites

Many of the apartment tower's tenants oppose opening a supervised consumption site in their building, saying they believe it would increase crime, attract more drug addicts and increase the number of dirty needles discarded in common areas.

But the woman behind Canada's first-ever supervised consumption site inside a residential building said her nearly two-year experiment has answered the question.

"The answer to that is a flat 'no,'" said Janice Abbott, the social worker who runs Atira Property Management, one of the largest social housing agencies in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

"In fact, I'd say it has the opposite effect." 

Accidental renegade

Abbott admits the country's first-ever supervised consumption site began in the fall of 2016, not as a bold enterprise, but as case of misinterpretation. 

"I got a call from the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority one day and they asked us if it was something we would consider and I took that as permission to do it," she said. 

"It wasn't until after we set them all up that I realized they were really just truly asking whether it was something we'd consider doing," she said. "I wasn't going to take them down at that point."

When asked whether she broke the law, Abbott concedes she likely did.

"Probably, technically, yes," she said. "It's not like we kept them secret. Eventually they were endorsed by the government." 

How they work

As in Ontario, the facilities where drug users can use potentially dangerous street drugs under medical supervision are not called supervised injection sites because of federal health regulations. 

Our goal is just to keep them alive.- Janice Abbott

"We call them shared using rooms," Abbott said. "The rooms are located within supportive housing buildings that we operate. They are primarily for tenants, but also for tenants' guests. We wouldn't have a stranger coming in and walking off the street." 

Abbott said the shared using rooms are based on a single principle: providing a safe space for drug users. 

"The goal is to save lives, so hopefully folks will stay alive long enough to be able think about or reducing their substance use and have access to alternatives, whether that's treatment or opioid substitution programs." 

"You can't access the services if you're dead," she said. "So the goal of our safe using rooms is that these are folks who have families that care about them, friends who care about them and our goal is just to keep them alive." 

'We don't really have police responses anymore'

Abbott said shortly after her staff set the rooms up in the fall of 2016, they began seeing some drastic changes.

"The first thing it did was provide a sort of safe space for folks to come and use together instead of alone in their rooms," she said, noting that bringing drug use out into the open also reduced the amount of stress on staff when it came to responding to overdoses. 

It absolutely reduces the amount of needles and drug paraphernalia that people stumble across.- Janice Abbott

"Before we had shared using rooms, staff were running all over buildings, up and down stairs," she said. "[Now] they can respond fairly quickly." 

Abbott said before her staff opened the shared using rooms, Atira's buildings in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside were a hotspot for first responders, such as police and paramedics who made frequent trips to respond to overdose deaths. 

"We don't really have police responses anymore unless there are extenuating circumstances," she said. "We still call ambulances when someone overdoses because we can do an immediate reversal, but we still encourage people to go to hospital."

Fewer dirty needles in common areas

Abbott said staff also found that discarded dirty needles, which littered many of the common areas within Atira's buildings, soon started to disappear.

"One of the things having a shared using space does is it reduces the amount of drug use in common areas. You see fewer needles and drug paraphernalia in stairwells, in common rooms, people aren't feeling like they have to hide."

"It's less likely someone is hiding to use because they're afraid of being caught," she said. "It's more likely somebody will step on or stumble upon a needle when you have a shared using space."

"It absolutely reduces the amount of needles and drug paraphernalia that people stumble across in their day-to-day lives," she said. "People come together and they're using in a way that I think is not only safe for them, but safe for their community."